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Q&A

Lesson 17 from: Foundations of a Working Photographer

Zack Arias

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Lesson Info

17. Q&A

Lesson Info

Q&A

All right, so what we're doing is we're importing photos in from our shoot outdoors, all right? And, um the one thing that I had planned on doing here let me back up a bit so uh I address you guys there or whatever uh, one thing I had planned on doing today was doing I was going take mine might take cowards ninety minute portfolio except I was going to have to do in sixty sixty minute portfolio uh that's going to be me running around shooting and doing more stuff like that but, um I feel like I want to spend more time taking questions like my main reason for shooting today was demonstrating things and talking through I know my gear, I know what it won't do you know what it will do all right? Um when you can shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot pictures but I want to make sure his we're ending today that the technical um is covered right? Reciprocal xev am pictures and gear and what year works when it works when it doesn't work and things like that and we really haven't had a good time t...

o take questions today it's been just kind of frantic and and and I'd rather just stop slow down and let's talk to the interweb so yeah, I want to do just questions and and if you have a specific question and we can demonstrate it live than will shoot pictures for it all right so let's start so we take that away all right let's do it right so uh questions that came up from the shoot outside start with some of those you see question is from mh picks ok so now he is using the umbrella and he has the black on and he's bouncing I would really like to know how he decides bouncing or shooting through so again if we could go through your decision on when to do what are the other okay um uh reflective versus shoot through do we have one of those umbrellas around dan here you can just hand me that shoot through right there at your feet it's a good question so with a convertible umbrella like this uh if we put the black cover on it convertible means the black cover comes off of it right top comes down um I can reflect light out of this umbrella onto my subject or if I take the cover off I can shoot light through it and I talked about when I was out there with phil flash that I prefer the shoot through I find the shoot through to be a little bit softer of a light source then the reflective all right um typically the reason I pulled that umbrella out out there with the broad color was guess what there it is a damn umbrella on like I didn't think so I could go I could have put the octu bank on that light I could have put big momma fifty inch soft box on that light this thing was available and sometimes that's simply my modified what's available joe mcnally tells this great story of when he photographed james brown he shot with the medium soft boxes he reaches in bag pulled out a medium soft bucks and that's what he used right so the big difference is if I shoot reflective carolina let's say I'm taking a portrait of you the larger the light source is the softer the light will be right and that is a relationship between the size of the soft are the size of the modifier and the size of subject so as this gets closer to you carolina it gets larger to you in relationship right if I start taking this away from you and relationship wise it gets smaller the further it gets away the harder the light gets the closer it gets the softer it is is but at some point I will impaler you through your head with this umbrella ship so if I turn this around the shoot through can come in a lot closer and when it comes in closer it's softer all right now one issue that happens is if this shoot through umbrella gets in between my subject in my lin's this whole thing this whole panel lights up with light going in every direction and what's gonna happen is this light can go right back into my lin's and flare, and I'm not talking about, like, cool flare. I'm talking about contrast, killing ugly flair, so I think maybe in the back of my head, I was just like, reflective umbrella dan, grab that one because I knew that if I back off and I'm sure I was shooting low, all right are shooting this picture with it, shooting that picture with it. This screen is contrast is I'll get out that it could get in between my subject of my lens and flare off me, but I could have shot that picture with the shoot through, I could it reflective sheet through, and at the end of the day for that situation, you would have seen a huge difference between the two. Really, at the end of the day, another thing about the reflective versus shoot through is that really comes into play more when I'm shooting indoors. All right, so if I'm over here shooting against this white wall, a shoot, their umbrellas going to just wash the whole place with light lights going out the back of it, lights coming out the front of it, so there's just light going everywhere with a shoot through out the back. Out the front everywhere so you walk into a place indoors small environment and you need to wash the whole place with light shoot their umbrella you put that black cover on that at least just keeps some of that light from going out into the rest of the environment so if a shoot through is giving you too much of a wash of light, you put the cover back on and you go reflective with it. All right? All right, cool. Next question from technical difficulties um you you mentioned that flash controlled sharpness when you're indoors, does that still apply outdoors when there's a lot of light flash controls sharpness? Yeah o as in that I go to a faster shutter speed or or or when I'm it freezes action I mean, they just asked that you said flash controlled sharpness when you're indoors and they want to know if that's so what did I say that in relationship to I what's that right? I'm trying to think if it controls sharpness now, if it's let's say I'm shooting a picture at thirtieth of a second indoors, but then I bring in flash that flash happens at a fraction of a second faster than thirtieth of a second and it will freeze action at that point or motion or movement um so sometimes flash does help with sharpness um uh pictures aren't more sharp with flash than without but if you're going slow shutter speed the flash happens at a fraction of a second so sam should fifteenth of a second with two hundred millimeter lens right which I can get motion blur were really quickly um if I bring in flash that flash hits the subject at five hundredth of a second or a thousandth of a second or whatever that duration of that flashes so that exposure is frozen onto your sensor and anything the flash is it hitting? Can khun move all right um the only other thing I could say to that is sometimes pictures that are lit have a perceived sharpness we're going go into that perceptual sharpness because the contrast edge contrast is more defined and so it kind of seems a little sharper but I wouldn't say that flashes sharper than then available like cool thanks see another question from um mike mika mchale j I'm saying, how can you as he asked yesterday how can you use flash and still keep a shallow depth of field? Good question. All right, let's set that up. All right? Uh cause I think is he the one who asked about the sb six hundred head on sb six hundred he was having a hard time with could have been ok event I remember someone asked specifically about you know I haven't sb six hundred but I still want to shallow depth field and newsflash all right, so there's my camera let's get that eighty five one two out we haven't shot with that beast yet um is it mounted? No that's the twenty oh it's another five d here we go. All right sorry borrow lenses we lost your eighty five one two all right, we want shallow depth of field let's get some shallow depth of field going on so the question is hot shoe flash um I remember specifically someone asked yesterday you know, I've got a s p six hundred but I'm having a hard time with shallow depth of field that's all about flash power at that point this is one honkin big piece of glass it's pretty beautiful really? So uh up up up about let's get a chair. All right, I'm going to shoot against, uh shoot against this silver here. I want to take it both out of focus so uh have you come on in and have a seat right here. Cool. We're just gonna have a seat right? So I want to shoot a portrait um I want a hot shoe flash yeah, we'll bring in the apollo twenty eight inch we gotta flash up that we do and can we cut that one video light overhead because I want to have to cut some of this ambience down all right hot you flash we have our subject and I want to shallow depth of field all right you're doing great you're just hanging out I got to find my exposure and all from a flash on and make sure I'm at channel one that's firing and I want to say let's say I want to shoot this portrait at f two alright f two eighty five millimeter lens give me a super I want to say one point to my cameras never seen one point two on it look at that actually that happens I want to shoot this portrait at f two all right make sure I'm tethering so I could master photo from this room must cancel whatever that is let's make sure this is working apparently it's not let me get my tethering up and running which it's not doing all right somebody work on that for me all right it's live internet here we go now uh sink speed right I have a pretty good I still have a whole lot of light coming in from these windows I want to just take a meter reading and at half two ah it f two at one sixteenth of a second I am under exposed no oh is it coming back on hit that hit that test button there that fire button no it's not working please standby was a technical difficulties that asked this question was that the last question? I yeah it's kind of reading it because it won't let me shoot. I don't see it doing anything. I want to unplug the camera. Oh, no. Plug it back in. We're gonna ask radio it's trying to go live in. All right, all right, here we go. F two I have an idea in my head I want to shoot this a deaf too for shallow depths field. I'm sitting in pretty there's a good bit of maybe a light going on. So what is that ambient light? Before I rip this thing out of the camera again and it's telling me at f two one sixteenth of a second, I am under exposed by more than two stops, but I still have light in there, but I'm gonna go ahead and turn on my flash. All right? So just kind of hanging out there, okay? Flashes working now I'm in eighth power on my flash right now. All right, eighth power and I want her to be well exposed from that flash at f two aperture determines flash exposure if I'm changing my shutter speed, my flash exposure is going to stay the same I shutter speeds, changing ambien and all of that. But my flash has to hit her it f two why do I want f two? I want shallow depth of field so I'm walking into the situation I say I want the shallow depths field I want that background to go out of focus I want to shoot to set up to I'm on a hot shoe flash how do I get there like this so I want to take a shot and take a look at it she's a little bit over exposed so and half two point oh all right I'm a two point oh, at eighth of a second, eighth power I have a shallow depth of field um it's just he's a little bit overexposed I'd say by maybe a third or two thirds of a stop so I'm reaching into my flash and on this nikon flash I have I go to the d pad and as I click it down two clicks that's two thirds of a stop. All right, so I'm now eighth power minus two thirds. All right, so you want shallow depth of field? You go down in power all right? If I click this down, I'm at two point oh, now and I go on two, three four I could go for more clicks that one point two that's a stop in a third down from there that is four klicks on my camera four clicks on my flash one, two, three, four that's now brought down another stop in a third right? And I take a picture at f two and you better not blow your focus that have to all right? And I'm at the same exposure because I'm moving my light and my aperture altogether. So now I'm shooting at one point two I have a really shallow depth of field don't mind to the color on that monitor it's it's horrible, right? Um there's my shallow depth of field there's my hot shoe flash and it is currently sitting at thirty second power fabulous! Thank you so much. All right, next question that was awesome. Okay, rob mac would like to know well, a fifty millimeter lens react to flash ambient the same as a zoom. Yeah, whatever seems I tell you one thing that, like I have my nifty fifty one fifty one eight where it doesn't work very well is shooting this white seamless stuff when it gets a bright light source coming back through the lens doesn't really like that very much and it just flares the fifty one four works better the one eight not so much, but when you don't have like a bright light source coming straight back into your lives with that one eight, you're fine yeah zoom lens prime lin's it's all glass hololens we talked about this a little bit yesterday but was asked again by hogan zilla zack luncheon yesterday shooting the dancing during a wedding what type of lighting flash set up did he use in that situation con's act to off camera flash and be mobile yes um I'm not as mobile at a wedding like with my off camera light um best case scenario I would have an assistant with a light on a stick so basically that would be a mano pod with a hot shoe flash on it something that could stay mobile the best system I've ever seen eyes joe victor stefano chick j v s out of dallas I think you just moved in j v s his moving d c or something anyways j b s I've watched him work at weddings and he's got the whole like secret service radio thing going on with like an ear piece to his assistant and uh coming down his sleeve he's got a microphone and so is he shooting he could be talking to his voice activated light stand and be like moved to the left drop it down a little a little more a little more a little more click right now I don't have a dedicated lighting assistant at weddings so when I'm shooting dance floor reception shots things like that I usually have a light off in a corner somewhere and that's kind of covering the dance floor and where I put it uh what I decide is what angle do I not want to shoot and let's say it's this angle right here and say I don't really care for this angle of the dance floor so that means my life will be back there the reason being is if I have an off camera light over in this corner shooting over my head from that angle from the same angle is the lynns here it looks like on camera flash because my light is following the same access my lenses I like my light to be often an angle so if I go this isn't the best shot of the dance floor that's where my life goes then I can move around over here and shoot at angles to that light or even sheet back into that light but that's usually not my main light I like it for like rim light or backlighting or something like that and then I take a flash and I have a handheld I either have it hooked up via a t t l cord to my camera or it's just a pocket wizard to stuck on it and I have my handheld flash for my main light from the front. So if you're being side lit here from that light the main lights coming in from here the reason I like it to be handheld is that I can move it to a different direction I can bring it up and have the light coming down um if I'm shooting details shots let's say there's the little table tents with everyone's names on it I come over you know the table tents I drop my light down here to the side and sidelight all of that I walk up to the cake and side light the cake and just have this light striking down across the cake instead of everything all the time coming from camera position um specifically the wedding receptions about lighting and off camera lighting one thing that I see um is that there is a lite modifier sold that looks like a plastic cocktail cup for flash right? The lights fear ok, now the lights fear is ah useful tool for x y and z six tuitions okay um but a lot of people by that and use that wedding receptions and the shooting everything with a lights were on camera flash lights fear and I see it all the time to the point where I can look at your website and go you're shooting with lights here because your life is coming right from here and I had almost venture to guess that eight out of ten wedding photographer websites that I see um are lighting their receptions with light spheres so eighty ninety percent like I see it all the time whenever I go to a wedding where there's multiple weddings you know, one of these big venues and there's three weddings going on mark and I usually the only ones walking around that don't have a light sphere. Every other team of photographers or every other wedding photographer work in that place that day light sphere lights for your lights, for your lights were lights fear and the thing I want to kind of challenge you and push you is that that is wrapping up to like every wedding photographer shooting weddings with light spheres. Then pretty soon every reception picture people are looking at in your area is all the same light. If every photographer or eight out of ten photographers walks into that reception with the same exact light from the same direction, then it all starts to just look very homogenous that's your lights no different than your lights no different than your life and just everyone shoot in the same light as soon as you break that connection me just going hand held and off to the side suddenly looks different than a than a light sphere like I don't bounce into the ceiling, I'm going to go straight little small direct lights and why? Because it visually is going to be different if you line up ten photographers and nine of them all like that reception with a light sphere and one of them comes in and does something different with their flesh, suddenly they're different and in this industry where there's so many of us trying to be photographers and trying to break into the industry if we're walking in approaching these weddings or receptions or jobs the same exact way as everybody else's well how are we any different all I want to do is just stand out of the crowd visually and when I break that connection if I'm one of the few people breaking that connection in my area I'm visually different I'm creating pictures with a flash over here or a flash on the stand that someone with lights fear can't make when my lights coming from there and my camera angle my viewpoint to the world is here my lights there and that happens that's completely different looking than my light happening here here here, here, here, here, here here it just your life is always coming from your viewpoint always break it and you're different immediately you're different? Is it more difficult? Yes is it technically harder? Yes do you same or curse words and your brain during a wedding reception? Oh yeah, because you just like happened my like over there on my new tio but I think that I'm going to do it if I could make a picture that looks different than eighty or ninety percent of the other wedding photographers in my area of five zip codes around me then I'm going to go through the headaches to get there and make it happen wedding reception lighting it's just that is not for the faint of heart that is not beginning lighting one oh one because you have three hundred people everybody's moving and everything is going crazy and and you've got to make it happen. Yeah, next question is from a guest in the chat room who said you've said once you're once you have your exposure, your set um and they'd like to know what if you zoom in and out with your lens, are you still good to go with the same exposure? You are good to go if you zoom in and out with your lin's, you're good at the same exposure provided you don't have a variable aperture linds so let's say you have a kit linds that's like f four to five six and the wide angle it's at four at the telephoto it's five six so you're shooting wide angle, you've set your exposure and then you just simply zoom in and now you're five six where it before you were a four than absolutely just lost stop a light, then you have to stop and you have to change your shutter speed one stop or you have to change your flash one stop we have to change your eyes you have to make a change just zooming that's why it's I I find it crucial to have zoom lenses with with a single aperture through the entire zoom so that when I go from twenty four to seventy I'm not having to go I have to change somewhere in there is three five and then it's for or whatever you know it is changing and not increments in small zoom settings yes along with that yesterday you were saying that you found that your longer telephoto lenses usually if you swap that over to it a shorter lens you're getting more light in through your shorter lens does that change roster zoom or is it just that winds that lindsay is like a half stop slower than the other lands or whatever just that land all through all out a zoom it's it's even through the zooms okay, yeah it's just from one leads to another the different speeds okay, thanks. So throw a little common out there from the chat room mary b just said just got back from a shoot and recompose so many shots with heading to clean spot echoing in my head thinking back and thanks to the schaefer right way all walk on shoulders you know we walk on shoulders everything I know I learned from somebody else you know and I hope you guys take this information plug it into how you're going to do things and then you're going to add and give that on to the next emerging photographer coming who needs some help you know no question from matthis beale um question is oh, it just moved down um there is also a possibility to shoot high speed sync with hot she flashed then you don't need a lot of power from your flash to get the sky to go dark is this true? Yes every time you go beyond sink speed like every time you make a compromise you're losing something. So what happens with high speed sync is as you're going faster with your shutter speed to get beyond sink speed you're losing power available e available to you out of your flash right now if high speed sync if I could do eight thousands of a second at full power from a hot shoe flash like poof and kit the whole of the power yeah, give it to me right? Like I would do that, but I can't be at eight thousands of a second at full power and even eight thousand of a second at full power than alien beers, something that some systems they're kind of cheating you're only getting a fraction of it right? So, um you can shoot that blue sky with a hot flash you could do it high speed sync but what I found is when I start putting that hot shoe into a modifier it's taking a stop or two away as it is and as you're going high speed sync that's taking time away and think you know our power away from you is what I say time awakes um okay all right um so um a lot of times what's easiest do with high speed sync has just used a straight flash without a modifier and you can you can sneak that shutter speed backed up because what's happening physically wade grab this like physically what's happening is sink speed you have two shutters in your camera first and second first curtain second curtain and that curtain opens first curtain opens fully shows your sensor flash fires and second curtain closes when you go beyond sink speed you get this black line kind of thing across the picture so the front garden opens julia let me have you come have a seat here for a second let's go beyond sink speed for a second just have a seat right here excellent perfect right there and just going to take a quick test shot yeah oh yeah watch this I want to show sink speed without a flash that is how talented I am so julian had you in front of my camera yet today so where you from you right no don't worry don't look at that monitor just don't look at that monitor whatsoever this is best yeah s oh you're you're from here originally then could we be seeing you canadian way have another canadian over here also you also get together and talk about canada yeah right um actually so you lived in a way for a while did you like it? I like the opportunity but l a as it I had to be the girl and I just didn't want to be a single moment yeah take about five months for me to go right that's tough to your family appear in seattle area yeah when you start having having kids you need any family absolutely uh just hang out right there I want to take this test shot kind of thing and I'm gonna walk all over me that's why I hate tethering stupid all right and just like right here and my pocket was thinking about what I'm doing that and we're not seeing it quite enough there let me go up to a faster shutter speed because I have a good bit of ambient light coming in here all right there we go. All right cool hanging up so uh let's see this picture as it pulls up on the screen we see this line going through the shot right? Because that second curtain that second curtain of of my shutter was rising up over the sensor before the flash had its chance to fully fire right so front curtain opens flash fires makes exposure second curtain closes we're talking fractions of seconds one hundred sixtieth of a second that all needs to happen right so when you go beyond six speed your first curtain opens and then it tells the flash okay, fire and that second curtain is already starting to close as the flashes firing and we get this line in the shot where part of it is lit with flash part of it is not lit with flash high speed sync when you goto a high shutter speed, those two curtains chase each other across your sensor like this. So your sensors seeing this this this this this and this and this and if your flash all the fires once you're only going to get this much so high speed sync, it needs to like that and very well primed increments to fully expose your sensor. All right, now it cannot do that at full power, so every stop you go above it, you're losing to stop available from this. All right, so I start losing power. This isn't very powerful to start with, and then I start losing power out of it anyways and then I throw it inside of a soft box and then if I'm doing off camera with a cannon or a nikon system in a soft box and it's little infrared system uh line of sight how it communicates is broken, then I need radio poppers or the new pocket wizard system so best case scenario cannon is five eighty e x two I called to e x because it's too expensive it's a four hundred thirty dollars flash like that things should brew your coffee for four hundred thirty dollars right it's a hot flash four hundred thirty dollars you're kidding me nine kinds nineteen better five hundred dollars for a nest nine hundred great flashes awesome flashes there like too cool but it's a lot of money so if I took a five thirty five eighty here on a five eighteen there and then a set of radio poppers or pocket wizards to get it all running high speed sync, wireless radio signal based all of that I'm a thousand dollars or more in money when I said we'll talk more about this tomorrow but it comes back down to I'm spending money for what I'm trying to do where do I put the money? I'm not going to put my money and high speed think I'm going to put my money and alien bees braun color I'd rather have a braun color pack then a high speed sync system any day anything cool? Great. Thank you. All right. The question from jeremy goodrich is zack when using the sun as backlighting your subject do you recommend using flags to reduce flare or what is the best method to ensure your subject exposed correctly without blowing out the scene? Um yes so you have a really bright backlight you khun get flare and adding flags which we have around here somewhere basically just pieces of black fabric that's it's a good thing do we have a flag around here somewhere here we go you take a flag here something like this and you can start sneaking these in on the edges of your setter around you're subject to just minimize that light barreling back into your subject um it's great um we keep a number of flags around but that's more light stands and usually an assistant all right so you're just a one one photographer shop and it's you and your client out on location you're usually not setting up two or three stands just for flags and then lights or whatever else like that but yes flags do help reduce flair okay there was a question from column who says the girl in the blue dress outside had paint graffiti running through the background I liked it but it wasn't really heading to cleans no it was not you know and I was sitting there complaining inside my own head of where you yeah so the question is did you feel that the graphic element was being more complementary than distracting? Um all on where did they go? They were in here a second ago where are they now uh there we go it was not heading a clean spot and that is bugging me all right see this line going through her her head um and this is one of those situations where um there's actually a better wall across the street like I'm kind of, you know, across the street we have x amount of cable to get out there if that paint line would have gone up just one more if those stupid taggers would have gone ahead and tagged on up here a little more and then it be painted over, I'd be great now I either would have to get her moved away from the wall, all right? Imagine if she moved away from the wall more and I dropped to a lower shooting position that would put her head above the line here, but I have a single light source that I'm trying to put light on her and on the wall, the more I move her away from it, the more I have to move the light away from her and now I'm only putting right on her and not the wall, and then I'm in a teaching situation where I need to at least demonstrate this stuff, but I'm not like I'd rather be across the street, but we can't move across were just physically the logistics I can't get there, so I want to demonstrate it, but I'm glad somebody pulled that up because yeah, that right there is not heading a clean spot I love the light, I love this light falling on her, I like all of that that does bug me it's given her a paint sombrero do you ever shoot on a ladder? Would you would you bring a ladder and shoot down on her? Uh, could yeah, I guess I don't usually take a ladder with me as short as I am, you think I would, um but, you know, I could have we could have flipped around this other wall that was just a plane like green. We could have flipped around that maybe I should have done that. Yeah, should've could've would've should've could've would've the main thing I wanted to demonstrate is you take you know this light and he turned into that with a grid walk it out, they're going ok, I need to make something kind of more dramatic and I need to take this environment and change it and a little grid spot in a powerful flash like I could do that with a hot shoe flash would have to be full power and in really close, but that quadra did a really great job doing it question from jeremy p was just the color of the umbrella or reflector that you're bouncing out are off of matter if your subject is dark or light skinned uh not really I don't think of it is like color I do think of reflectors as we have silver reflectors and gold reflectors um and I don't have like any gold umbrellas or gold soft boxes or anything like that but with silver or gold reflectors my take on it what I prefer to do is with lighter or caucasian skin I always use silver uh with darker skin indian african american skin um I will use silver or gold I find that the darker skin tones dark brown skin tones you put a gold reflector and it just gives this beautiful warm kind of glow I find you do that to caucasians and it looks like they need a new liver right? Because they just suddenly go really yellow to yellow it's just I don't really like a gold reflector on caucasian or light skin um but on brown skin it's really gorgeous there was a question from tech wave in the chat room decides matter when you when you're using soft boxes are umbrellas and it seems like a real simple question that matters but can you just kind of discuss that what's the difference twenty eight and right I mean I think so we have our twenty eight inch soft box over here eyes big mama around or easily around it's ok, I got it size does matter all right, so right now what we have on a light stand over there is a twenty eight inch softball this is the westcott apollo fifty eight that I called big momma and that's a much larger softbank's all right so we have that soft box way have this one all right those two little mama the um the larger the light source the larger the light source is the softer the light will be all right so I bring a twenty eight inch soft box on a subject the closer I get it to her to softer it's going to be and I get ah bigger soft box close to my subjects it's even a larger light source the larger it's going to be the softer it's going to be now what happens sometimes is I like my soft boxes in close to my subject like him in close the closer I get it in the software that light is I'm buying this for soft light I'm not going to take a photograph of her with a twenty eight inch soft box over here I can like a hat um we should do screen capture contests like what worst screen capture wins my left shoe uh yes so if I bring this twenty eight inch box way out over here yes I will get light onto her yes I could make it an exposure yes that'll be fine but the quality of that light won't be anywhere nearly as good as this following this what I'm saying now let's say for the sake of of composition I'm trying to shoot this wide of a shot which means physically my soft box needs to be here. Well, the front of this little one gets away the saw the harder it gets but I can take this one get rid of it and use the bigger one at a further distance and I still have a nice soft light because it's larger, larger the umbrella larger the soft box then the softer the light in the larger they become the further away they can get the rule of thumb is is that a soft box? A good working distance for a soft box is take the diagonal measurement let's just say that's three feet on that what? Whatever it is I'll say it's three feet and it's twice that working distance so if that's a three foot soft box and diagonal than a good working distance is anywhere close to your subject to six feet away and beyond six feet, you're kind of losing the look of the soft box you're still getting light over your subject is just not as nice makes sense you need a soft box that has got to be ten feet away go upto octo base eighty six inch umbrellas things like that it's further back but still a nice soft light. Some people really liketo have big octo banks or huge umbrellas for phil's because the phil light is fifteen feet off set but it's still this big soft phil light coming in but it's a huge eighty six inch umbrella or it's a seven or eight foot off to bake off the set ten fifteen something feet away acting is a phil like um it's far away but still very soft all right okay can we ask you one more question before we wrap up yeah way don't ever got no alright okay um so the shell would like to know if you typically have music playing in your studio because I mean we've noticed that every time we go to break you're like can you guys from the music on yes I can't stand not having music playing okay and does that help with the uncomfortable silences when you're doing you know, changing was on time two years like yeah, but I think music just to be kind of in the background I don't need the music to be overpowering well where you yell over it or whatever but it does it does bring the ambient something going on in the room up to where um yeah um I like uh pandora um and, um things like that um and I'll ask some of you know, the client who you into what do you like? Who do you listen to? And they tell me and I can just plug that in I by the, uh by the full on pandora membership um so I don't have to worry about you know times out and all of that and I'm paying for the music that's pumping into the studio um and then I just type in who they like listening to and I get a channel of a mix of that usually before the client gets in I am just its hip hop poop and I don't know what it is um but my brain is always scattered and if I could get just a repetitive don't don't don't something going on um hip hop gets me in myself when I need to get my zone and I can't listen to music I'm freaking out all right zach whoa can you tell us if you have any last thoughts for the day today that you want to share any last florals we're not quite done for the day we're coming back now or not but I mean just for for right now right now um last thoughts of the day is um I cannot reiterate enough of understanding the technical and understanding your gear and knowing what it will do what it won't do all the limitations so that is you walk and say ok I want to shoot this picture I look at my equipment I know if it can do it or not and then once you find like when I was working out there in the in the alleyway and I found my first exposure was f or one sixteenth of a second that everything built off of that because that light was constant out there no matter what I was shooting out there f for one sixtieth was my I am being so if I if I shot that it f sixteen at one sixtieth it went dark um and then as I brought flash powers in and a moving from one light system to another light system, I know the difference in amount of light between the two systems and I can start calculating my exposure before even swing that camera in that direction I'm already thinking through okay, this lights giving me this here so the next light will give me this here and it's going to have to be at this power setting and and okay, and I'll work off of that and once you get started, especially on location when your location, photographer and once you start your day um everything will build off of that and it's really fairly easy. I know it can get confusing with all the numbers and you take one this way and one that way. But if you can understand, get those relationships stuck in your head you're reciprocal zx you find your main exposure, you get your reciprocal set once those gets set everything khun build off of it for the rest of the day and it's really pretty simple and then you're consistent photographer and remember one thing I said, I guess my takeaway from, like the alley shoot was once your exposure is locked and you can forget about it, you forget about it all together. You take a little bit of time at the beginning find your aperture, find your shutter speed, find your flash power if you're dealing with flash, find where all of those pieces come together for you and making the perfect exposure and you don't have a light meter, you've just taken test shots. The camera is your light meter if you don't have like you can't go take a light meter reading, although someone just one one and we have one more to give away this weekend. Um, you don't have that meter. You take some test shots, you get locked in and man once it's locked in your set and then all it's about is like, ok, let's, talk let's, get actors. I'm just paying attention to my subject now I'm not worried about my exposure changing. I'm not worried about my life changing none of that, and I'm just dealing with my subject.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

creativeLIVE-Zack01.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

Ivan
 

Outstanding! There are so many gems, any photographer aspiring to venture into business will gain much from this course. There are plenty of technical how-to's with superb examples, from choosing the right lens for a given situation, to learning about reciprocals, expressed in Zack's warm and fun style. He's a joy to watch. But, this class is much more than that. Zack is extremely generous in sharing very personal experiences and insight, on how he began from early days of struggling, to current projects, how he built his portfolio, and looking ahead to the future. And, in the final discussion with his wife Meghan, they open up and share their personal struggles balancing work and family life, and their strong support of each other. We can all relate to this. This class is a great guide on what it takes to start and become a successful pro photographer, and pulls no punches. It's not easy to do, but with some creativity and an insane amount of hard work, is doable and very rewarding!

a Creativelive Student
 

Zack's always been one of my favorite photographers and when I think about why he is, it isn't even his work that comes to mind. Zack's technical knowledge and ability to pull off really stunning images is reason enough to check out this course. While he does a good job at teaching the fundamentals, he even better job at explaining why he makes the choices he does. Anyone can tell you what "rules" to follow and what you should and shouldn't do but Zack does a good job explaining why those guidelines are JUST guidelines and shouldn't be taken as law, which can be limiting. I highly recommended this for anyone who has an interest in becoming a better photographer.

a Creativelive Student
 

I haven't finished the course yet either but I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I love Zacks work I think he is an amazing teacher and a very funny man. I loved one light and I'm looking forward to finishing this and starting the his studio lighting course also.

Student Work

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